


Improbable Configurations

by sultrybutdamaged



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Canon-Compliant Nudity, Developing Friendships, Episode Remix, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, References to Depression, Seriously So Much Talking, bisexuals bonding, lots of talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-22 23:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sultrybutdamaged/pseuds/sultrybutdamaged
Summary: “Fuck buddies, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever,” Margo said.  “It’s all off-limits.  Right?”  She turned to Eliot.“That’s right.  No boyfriends, no lovers,” Eliot agreed, “and no one you want to be fucking, either.” He was looking at Quentin and Alice, which was deeply unfair, because he’d told Eliot -“Aw, but that really limits poor Q’s choices,” Margo drawled. She was looking at Penny, and now Quentin was sure that failing the Trial and getting kicked out of Brakebills had to be better than staying in this room one minute longer.____The timeline where the Trials were a lot less concerned with matchmaking.





	1. Partners

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of months back on twitter I said that Episode 1x06 was a missed opportunity to let Quentin and Kady become friends, and then I couldn't stop thinking about the idea, so here we are.
> 
> Beta by [thoughtsappear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsappear/pseuds/thoughtsappear)

“You have until midnight,” Eliot said, and the same feeling of doom that had accompanied each of the previous trials crashed down on Quentin.

_Trials you passed,_ he reminded himself. _By… cheating, yeah, and Penny figured out the second one, but.._

He refused to let himself look at Penny. No matter how good the guy was at these trials, there was no way he was telling his deepest secrets, his “utmost truth,” whatever that was, to Penny.

And luckily, he wouldn’t have to, because a glimpse at Alice showed him she was already shooting him looks, distress on her face. If he had to tell anyone in this room his secrets - _well, any other first year,_ he thought, remembering all the half-drunken nights he’d spent at the picnic table behind the Physical Kids cottage with Eliot the last few weeks - it was going to be Alice. “Hey,” he said, “you wanna - “

“Uh-uh-uh.” Margo’s admonishing voice cut him off. “No fuck buddy partners for the trials.”

“What - we’re not - “ Too late, Quentin realized she hadn’t been talking about them. Her focus was on Penny and Kady, who had already picked up their rope and paints. 

Of course, Margo heard his protest. She shot him a sly, knowing look, then turned back to the other pair. “You two are disqualified,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” Kady muttered.

“Yeah, we’re not fuck buddies,” Penny grumbled. “This isn’t high school.” Kady gave him an odd look.

“Fuck buddies, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever,” Margo said. “It’s all off-limits. Right?” She turned to Eliot.

“That’s right. No boyfriends, no lovers,” Eliot agreed, “and no one you want to be fucking, either.” He _was_ looking at Quentin and Alice, which was deeply unfair, because he’d _told_ Eliot - 

“Aw, but that really limits poor Q’s choices,” Margo drawled. _She_ was looking at Penny, and now Quentin was sure that failing the Trial and getting kicked out of Brakebills had to be better than staying in this room one minute longer.

So… “Kady, do you want to be partners?” he blurted out.

And immediately regretted it. Penny glared, like he wanted to find another tree or imaginary mental hospital wall to shove Quentin against. Alice’s eyes widened. Kady… she had an unreadable smirk on her face.

“Sure, why not?” she said.

“Perfect,” Eliot said. “And then Alice and Penny…” He sighed, murmuring to Margo, “Probably the best we can do with a class this repressed and tragic.”

Margo didn’t give Quentin any time to figure out what that meant, or why Alice’s face was suddenly so red; she clapped her hands, making them all jump, and chirped, “Move, move!” in the tone she’d been using for the last two days. “Until midnight!” she said.

“Bare your souls or be banished forever,” Eliot intoned.

*****

“Okay, we’ve got our paints, the ropes…”

Alice Quinn had never failed a test in her life. Not second grade gym, even though no one would pick her for the kick-ball team, not tenth-grade Geometry with the teacher who kept trying to offer “special tutoring” so he could get a glimpse down her shirt, not the Brakebills entrance exam she hadn’t been invited to take. And maybe she wasn’t sure she even wanted to be at Brakebills, maybe most days she thought she’d be better off forgetting magic even existed, but she couldn’t bring herself to fail this one, either.

_At least it’s not Quentin_, she thought.

Quentin had wanted to be partners; he’d been going to ask her when Margo starting making fun of them. But that’s because Quentin thought the easiest person to get naked and tell secrets with would be a friend. Alice knew better.

“Are you ready?” she asked, turning to face Penny.

She’d selected their spot, a little clearing behind the Physical Kids’ cottage, far enough from the house and into the mesh of trees that made up the school’s magical barrier that no one was likely to find them here. Just because she was willing to get naked with Penny to stay at the school didn’t mean she wanted a random drunk second-year to find her.

“I’m ready.” Penny’s voice always sounded the same, a laconic drawl with a hint of amusement buried deep to match the faint smirk, softened by his warm eyes. Quentin was always complaining about what an ass Penny supposedly was, but Alice had never seen it. He was always perfectly nice to her.

Of course, he’d protected her from getting expelled while he was throwing Quentin under the bus for Sunderland, which was probably Q’s point.

“I brought alcohol,” she said. Not that she needed a drink to take her clothes off - well, she didn’t think she did, it wasn’t like she’d had many opportunities - but it couldn’t hurt.

Penny’s smirk deepened. “I won’t say no to that.”

She took a long swig of the rum she’d swiped from the Physical Kids’ bar, then passed it over. Penny held her eyes while he took his own drink, then made no move to take the next step. Apparently she was in charge for the night.

“Okay,” she said, and turned around, slipping off her shoes.

She was acutely aware of him moving behind her, his clothes making soft noises as they hit the ground. 

She’d never had this experience, stripping with another man - or a woman, actually, not that Alice ever thought about that, not exactly, except maybe theoretically. She’d thought this whole trial would be easier with someone who was a stranger. Penny wasn’t that, but he was a lot closer than Quentin. Sure, she’d have to see him in class, assuming they both passed, but they weren’t friends, it wasn’t like she’d have to _talk_ to him again after dumping all her embarrassing secrets on him. He could become that guy she spent the next two and a half years pretending didn’t exist.

The clasp on the back of her top stuck, and she swore, tugging at it. _ They could have at least warned us to wear easier clothes_.

“Let me get that.” Alice jumped at the sudden murmur of Penny’s voice an inch away from her ear, flinching away from his hands as they brushed her shoulders. 

“I’m fine,” she snapped, glaring up at him. 

He held his hands up in surrender. “Just wanted to help.”

“I’m - “ She could feel herself flushing, but it wasn’t like he could see it in the dark. And she wasn’t going to fail a test because she couldn’t get her shirt off. “Yes, thank you,” she said stiffly, twisting to put her back to him.

His hands were gentle as they worked the clasp free, and he stepped back when he was done with a murmured “all set.” Alice finished stripping off the rest of her clothes, wasting time folding them neatly and setting them aside before forcing herself to turn around and face him.

It was dark enough that she couldn’t really see much of him, except to notice that Penny stood with the same insouciant confidence when he was naked as clothed. _ Probably because he’s so used to barely wearing a shirt,_ she thought. She was closer to the lights coming from the cottage, so he must have been able to see more of her than she could of him, but to his credit, his eyes didn’t drop away from her face for even a second.

“Ready to do this?” he asked, picking up the rope.

Alice nodded. “Ready.”

*****

Quentin’s hands were shaking.

That wasn’t anything new, but this wasn’t his usual need to move so the skin-crawling tension in his brain could have an outlet. Quentin’s brain had pretty much stalled out. He was terrified by the thought of fucking up.

“I don’t think it has to be perfect,” Kady said, in a so-patient-it-wasn’t-really-patient-at-all voice. She was standing close enough for him to feel the puff of her breath on his shoulder when she spoke. It made him shiver even though it was as warm on the roof of this academic hall as it was anywhere on a magical Brakebills night.

Kady had already applied the paint to his face and chest in the same brusque way she’d stripped off her clothes, not bothering to look away from anything, like she couldn’t imagine why them both being naked and half-tied up should matter at all. Quentin supposed he ought to be insulted by that, but it was oddly reassuring, how completely she disregarded him. 

And it wasn’t like Quentin had any illusions. The girl was screwing Penny, multiple times a day. He might not like the guy, but Penny had walked around naked a lot when they were roommates and Quentin had functioning eyes.

He considered, again, his brief, possibly insane thought of doing this trial with Penny. Only because his ex-roommate had come up with the solution to the second trial, and his astral projection skills were the only reason Quentin’s plan had worked in the first trial and, okay, there was also the fact that Penny could read minds, could apparently read Quentin’s mind specifically whenever he wanted (which, he’d made clear, was never) and so he’d already seen… but, no. 

Alice would have been perfect. Alice never judged him, even when he gave her opportunities. Quentin would have been fine, mostly fine, with Alice knowing his deepest secrets - not that he would have enjoyed telling them, but the part that came after, he could have survived that. Maybe, he thought, he would even have enjoyed an excuse to know her like that. 

But Margo and Eliot knew too much about Quentin, or thought they did, and so here he was. Digging into the depths of his soul with Kady Orloff-Diaz, almost-stranger and terrifying person.

He took a deep breath and lowered his hands again, trying to keep his trembling fingers from missing the right spot despite the clumsiness of the bonds around his wrists. Kady rolled her eyes. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, and quickly smeared the paint across her cheeks. The lines didn’t come out perfectly straight, but she was probably right, it didn’t matter. He moved down, over her shoulders, the lines of her collar bones. Her skin was warm beneath his touch and she didn’t flinch or try to punch him like he’d half-expected.

It was still a relief to pull back and rub the last of the paint from his fingers. “Okay,” he said.

“Right. So.”

“So, now, I guess we… talk.”

“Hmm.” For the first time all night, Kady looked less than perfectly confident. “What, we just blurt out our, what did Eliot call them?”

“Utmost truths.”

“Right, those.” She snorted, shaking her head. “This fucking place.”

“I know.”

“How are we even supposed to know what those are?”

“I don’t think we will.” He’d spent about two minutes, back when Eliot and Margo were explaining the third trial, trying to guess what his “innermost guiding principle” was before giving it up as hopeless. “I think we just start… saying things, and eventually we’ll hit the right one.”

“We just share all our secrets?” Kady gave a disbelieving laugh. “No fucking way am I doing that.”

“You’d rather flunk out?” Kady’s jaw tightened with irritation, and Quentin added, “Then what’s the big deal? You’re going to have to tell me your biggest truth by midnight. Who cares about the others?”

“Oh, right, so you’re totally fine telling me every nerdy little loser secret you have?” Kady raised her eyebrows, challenging.

“No, obviously not.” But he was sort of resigned to the idea. By the end of tonight, Kady was going to know more about him than Alice, or Eliot and Margo, or, hell, even Julia. “Look, this is going to suck, okay, but if we get it over with, we get to stay here and not go back to our old lives. Isn’t that worth pretty much anything?”

Kady tilted her head, giving him a curious look. “It’s that big a deal to you?”

“Sure. Isn’t it to you?”

“Yeah,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “But I know why I want to stay.”

“Okay, start with that.” She frowned. “Why you want to stay,” he clarified. “Why’s Brakebills so important to you?” 

For a minute, she looked like she was going to say something, the defensive smirk faltering on her face, and then she shook her head. “Nah, you go first.”

“What, say why I want to stay at Brakebills?”

“Or anything. Whatever secrets you want to share.” The smirk flickered back over her lips. “Open up, Coldwater.”

“Fine.” He sighed. He’d come up with a list, while they were climbing up to the roof and setting up their supplies. Not utmost truths, not even close, but something to start with. Things he could survive telling Kady if he had to go first. None of them seemed so easy now that the moment had arrived. 

“I’m afraid I’m not a very good magician,” he said.

Kady paused for a long moment, then blinked. “Oh. I thought these were supposed to be secrets.”

“Wow.”

She grinned. “Sorry. That was mean.”

“You think?”

“Oh, relax.” Her smile faded into something more curious. “Is the secret that you suck at magic, or that you’re afraid you suck at magic?”

“Well, apparently neither one’s a secret.” He sounded whiny, he knew it, but he’d never been able to stop that. “Now you have to do one.”

She tipped her head back, staring up at the sky. “When I was eight, I stole a candy bar from this bodega,” she said. “It was a Kit-Kat.”

He stared at her. “That’s not a secret.”

“No one knows,” she said defensively.

“Okay, technically a secret, but not one that matters,” he protested. “What, your innermost governing principle is that you’re a thief?”

For a minute, something he couldn’t read happened to her face, but it was gone before he could register it. “When I was eight,” she repeated, in a slower voice, “I stole a candy bar from a bodega because I was hungry, and I hadn’t had much to eat for a few days, and I didn’t know when my mom was going to come home.”

“Oh.” Quentin knew he should have something to say to that, but he had no idea what it was.

Kady dropped her eyes away, expression hardening. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t some Dickens tragedy. We weren’t… my family wasn’t like that. Just my mom had gone away for a couple days and left me with these friends of hers who lived on top of the bodega, and it turned out they kind of sucked at babysitting. They didn’t remember kids needed to eat. Probably because they survived on coffee and cocaine. So I figured, they were supposed to be feeding me, I’d just take what I needed.”

“That, uh… makes sense.” Inadequate, Quentin thought, but what was he supposed to say? _Sorry for your sucky childhood?_ She’d kill him, maybe literally.

“Yeah, my mom thought so when I told her. She was pretty pissed.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I mean, that she… you know, that she was angry or whatever.”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

He shrugged, because he wasn’t hopeless enough to say he was glad her mother had cared. His own mother might have ignored him half the time and criticized him the other half, but she’d never let him go hungry either. “I don’t know. Uh, my turn?”

“Go for it.”


	2. Questions

“So, now I guess we start,” Alice said. They had considered the picnic table, but concerns about splinters had driven them to instead spread their shirts on the ground and sit there. Alice passed him the bottle of rum. She was already feeling a little light-headed.

Penny took a long swig and handed the bottle back. “How about we ask questions?” he suggested.

“What?” Alice raised the rum to her lips, wincing at the tingle of the alcohol down her throat. She hadn’t paid much attention to what she was swiping when they’d passed through the cottage, but everything Eliot kept there was expensive, and strong.

Penny shrugged. “You know, to get us started? You ask me a question, I ask you one back? Unless you had a better idea.”

Alice had a lot of ideas about how to get through this test, but she had to admit none of them were better than this. Mostly she’d thought she’d get drunk and hope the truth spilled out. _In vino veritas_, her father always said. The handful of times she’d managed to open up to a peer before, it had been under the influence.

Though, she remembered with a wince, she also wound up saying things like “you have a stupid face.” Penny’s idea was definitely the better one.

“Okay,” she said. “Did you want me to go first?”

“Shoot.” If Penny was worried about her digging into his darkest secrets, it didn’t show.

“Um…” Alice toyed with the bottle, trying to think of something. “Where are you from?” She shook her head as he laughed. “Sorry, that’s obviously not a secret.”

“Well, it could be,” he said, “except that I already told you.”

It took her a minute before she remembered the second trial and his expertise in fishing. “Florida, right?” He nodded. “So, uh, your family is from there?”

The pause was so slight she almost missed it in the dark. “I guess. I don’t really have a family.”

“Your parents?”

Another shrug. “My mom gave up custody, or lost it, when I was little, so it was more like foster parents. A lot of them.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” And not so lacking in social graces that she didn’t know to stop there, except that they were supposed to be digging up secrets. “Why did she lose custody?”

Even Penny’s too-laidback-for-anything attitude couldn’t quite stand up to that level of invasiveness, though he made a valiant effort. “She was fifteen when she had me,” he said. “No family, no money, no support. A kid with a kid, and she had her problems. It was for the best.”

“Right.” She took another swig.

Penny held out his hand, wiggling his fingers for the bottle. “What about your family?”

“Well…” Alice handed over the rum. “My parents are crazy people.” It got easier every time she said it. She hadn’t sounded so matter-of-fact that first day with Quentin in the coffee shop. Of course, she’d been sober.

He nodded. “Magicians, right?”

She sighed. “Yes, but no, they didn’t teach me anything, they didn’t get me into the school, I didn’t get any advantages.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Penny said. “Obviously you don’t need any of that. I just meant, you know, you said they were crazy, so… magicians?” His grin was small, teasing.

She gave a startled laugh. “Oh, right. Yeah, crazy like all of us.”

“Are you?”

“Crazy?” She shrugged. “Kids at school always thought so, but that was because I studied all the time and I wasn’t allowed to have anyone over. You know, because it’s hard to explain how your house is twice as big on the inside as it is outside. Or why your parents are always lounging around with naked people.”

Penny only raised his eyebrows. “So, not a typical house?”

“You could say. My dad studies ancient Roman magic.” He looked blank. “Orgies, basically.”

“Oh. So, this…” He gestured with his bound hands. “This is nothing to you.”

She’d forgotten for a moment that they were naked. It came rushing back. “Not really,” she muttered. 

“You liked school? You said you studied a lot.”

“Yeah, I - “ Her hands twitched, feeling like the ropes had tightened. She stared down at them. The ropes didn’t look any different around her wrists.

“Something wrong?”

“I just…” The ropes were supposed to come off when they’d told their big secrets, their utmost truths. And secrets magic worked by degrees, because there were layers to truth, lies that were deliberate and lies that you didn’t even know you were telling. Alice knew a lot about lying, but she hadn’t realized…

She took a deep breath, trying to remember what she’d been talking about. “No,” she said carefully. “I never really liked school.” The ropes were still against her wrists. “It was boring, mostly.” Nothing. “But I was good at it, and… and I like being good at things.” _Not too good_, but the ropes weren’t demanding that much, not yet. “I was never comfortable with other kids, but I figured out that there were rules, and you could get by if you played by them. It’s just understanding what they expect and going along with it. Smart nerdy girl with glasses, you know, it’s something everyone understands. I learned that, and so… it was easy. Just fit in and no one bothers you. No one bothers to find out if they’re right about you.”

The ropes loosened, slightly. Not enough for her to free herself, but a little less uncomfortable.

“Smart,” Penny said.

“Yeah, well, that’s the point.” She was startled at the bitter tone in her own voice. The rum was messing with her control. 

“Sounds lonely, though,” he added. His voice was soft, but completely neutral. Alice couldn’t see any pity on his face, though between the dark and the alcohol, she maybe just couldn’t see well at all.

“I’m not a people person.” She didn’t wait to see if he treated that skeptically. “It’s true,” she said, and felt a surge of relief when the ropes didn’t tighten in denial. “I’ve never wanted a big crowd of friends. I prefer to be alone.”

“I’ve noticed that about you.” Alice could feel her face heating up at that thought, that he’d noticed anything about her. “But you have friends, right? I mean, you’re friends with Quentin. And I’ve seen you hanging out with Margo.”

Alice scoffed. “Margo and I are not friends,” she said. “And Quentin… well, yeah, okay, but that’s on him. He basically forced his way into my life.” Not that she regretted it - the last few months would have been lonelier than even she could have handled if it weren’t for Quentin, following her around campus with his rambling chatter and sitting across the table in the cafe mocking the way she drank her coffee. When she’d gone into hiding at Gengi’s, after her disastrous trip home, and it was suddenly quiet, she’d been startled by how much she’d missed his noise.

“He does that.”

She almost laughed. “He tried to be your friend?”

“Nah. First day we met, he accused me of stealing his stupid Fillory book.”

She ignored the urge to to defend Q on principle, because Fillory was pretty stupid, even if it was real. “Did you?”

Penny opened his mouth, hesitated, stared down at his hands. That time Alice did laugh. “That’s a yes.”

“How - how does this work?”

“The ropes won’t let you lie. They’ll get tighter if you do.” She grinned, feeling loser and easier. She knew that was the rum, and the fact that he hadn’t looked once at her boobs, but she didn’t care. “So you have to admit it.”

“Okay, fine.” He closed his eyes. “I stole Quentin’s stupid Fillory book.” His tone said this admission was too painful to handle, but a grin slipped out.

Alice giggled, bring up her hand to cover her mouth. “Why would you want to do that?” 

“I was really bored.”

“I mean, that’s _really_ bored.”

“Tell me about it. I gave up after a couple pages and spilled beer on the whole thing, so I tossed it.”

“Oh, my god.” She should be bothered by this on Quentin’s behalf, but she couldn’t stop laughing. “And you’re the one who ended up going there,” she marveled.

The humor slid off Penny’s face. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Lucky me.” He tilted the bottle back.

*****

“This is getting us nowhere,” Quentin grumbled, leaning his hip against the wall surrounding the roof, then wincing when the rough concrete scratched his bare skin. That was at least the third time he’d forgotten he was naked, which, okay, minor miracle by itself considering Kady ten feet away and also wearing nothing, but any pride Quentin might have felt in how cool he was being about his nudity around a beautiful girl was killed by how completely they were failing this test.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kady said. “I know all kinds of things about you now.”

“Pointless things.” She knew that he liked perky-but-angry female pop singers and had played DnD growing up, that he’d only had one friend before high school and barely more since then, that he’d never had a relationship last longer than three months and was pretty sure he’d never been in love except unrequitedly with Julia. (Kady had made a face at that, probably because she thought it was pathetic, but she hadn’t said anything.) He’d told her about his dad’s cancer, and showing his dad his magic, which he thought was a big secret, maybe something he could get in trouble for, but she’d just shrugged and said, “I grew up around magicians,” so apparently not. 

In exchange for that, he got that she’d once been in love with a drummer and had an abortion after she got pregnant from him, which might have been a big secret except she said it so easily that Quentin guessed that didn’t count. He knew that she’d never known her father, or anything about him except his last name, but she liked to make up stories when people asked, and when she was very young she’d believed if she imagined a good enough story, it would come true. That had been sweet, and sad, and nothing like he’d expected to hear from Kady; his reaction must have shown on his face, because hers morphed to _I-could-kill-you-with-one-finger_ and he’d backed off.

None of this was going to help them pass the trial. And their time was running down. From the view he had over campus, the reason he’d picked this spot, he could see the clock by the main building. It was almost ten.

“We need to try something else,” he said.

“Sure,” Kady agreed. “What, though?” She sounded as frustrated as he felt, which was a relief. Kady kept saying she wanted to pass this trial, but Quentin had been afraid she’d care more about maintaining her too-tough-for-this-shit attitude than staying at Brakebills. But even though she hadn’t dropped the attitude, she’d gone along with every idea he came up with.

“Alright, uh…” He paced a few steps, wringing out his hands, the ropes binding his wrists making his skin crawl. He wished that being naked didn’t also mean being without his things. He always thought better when he had a coin to play with, or his cards; his thoughts jumped around less. 

_We should have brought alcohol, _he thought, too late. He always said too much when he was drunk, always got sappy and desperate to connect and ended up dumping his secrets and fears on people who freaked out and ran the next morning, not wanting to put up with the needy weirdo he became after a few drinks. _And of course, the one time that would actually help me, I forget._

“Why do you do that?” Kady asked.

“What?” He paused in his circuit, a few feet in front of her.

“All that.” And then she did the most bizarre thing, wiggling her fingers and waving her hands and bouncing on her toes all at the same time.

“I don’t look like that,” he said, offended.

She grinned. “Penny does the better impression, but yeah, you do. Especially when you’re thinking too hard, or you get excited, like if someone makes the mistake of bringing up fucking Fillory. Other times, like in study groups, it’s more…” She hunched over, pulling her shoulders up to her ears, and ran her hand back through her hair, tugging at it while she rocked back and forth.

“I…” A part of him wanted to know why the hell Kady was watching him enough to be able to imitate his twitches and ticks - even if she was _grossly_ exaggerating - but there was something more important here. ‘Penny does impressions of me?”

“Sometimes,” Kady says. “Mostly when you piss him off. But, uh, don’t tell him this? I think he actually finds it funny.” She rolled her eyes at his expression. “Oh, come on, he doesn’t do it that often. It’s not like it’s our main form of entertainment.”

“No, I know what that is,” he grumbled. Penny and Kady had never locked the door, and never seemed to care if he came in when they were going at it, back when he and Penny had been roommates. Sometimes they’d started when he was already there, when he was trying to sleep. Or study.

“Ugh, don’t be a prude,” Kady said.

“I am not a prude,” Quentin protested. “I just think consent should apply to everyone in the room, including innocent bystanders who just want to finish their work!”

“Hmm, maybe.” Kady gave him what he might have called a playful look on someone else. “But I bet you are a prude, anyway.”

“Am not.” Sounding like a five-year old didn’t help his case, but why did people always think things like that about him? Margo thought he was a virgin.

“Yeah, you are. I bet you’ve never done it anywhere wilder then, like, a couch.”

“That isn’t true.” Quentin could have kicked himself as soon as he spoke.

“Oh, yeah? Then tell me that. Your wildest time.” She grinned. “Maybe it was your defining moment and your ropes will fall off.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “But fine.” He was lucky he had a story for this. “Uh, okay, so, freshman year of college, Julia was in this sorority, and I hooked up with one of her sisters at a party.”

“‘At a party’ isn’t wild.”

“Can I finish my story, please?” Kady shrugged. “Okay, so, yes, it was at a party, but we couldn’t find a room that wasn’t occupied at the house, so this girl said that there was a way you could climb out onto the roof from one of the bathrooms. So, yeah, we did that.”

“You had sex on a roof?” Kady sounded unimpressed.

“Well, not a roof like this one. It was, you know, eaves and stuff. It wasn’t flat.”

“So you had sex while in danger of falling into the street?” He nodded. “How big was this house?”

“Like three stories?”

“Damn. You wanted to get with that girl so badly you were willing to die for it.” Kady shook her head. “That’s desperate, Coldwater.”

“There were trees and stuff below, we wouldn’t have died,” he muttered. Which of course set his brain towards other roofs, other falls… but no, none of that was a secret, and it definitely wasn’t his innermost governing truth. Just fucked up brain chemistry. “So, what’s yours?” he asked. 

“My what?”

“Your wildest place.”

“Oh, I hate all that shit,” Kady said. “Give me a fucking couch any day. I like to be comfortable when I’m getting it on.” 

*****

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alice asked when the silence had gone on so long that her cheerful buzz was fading into numbness. She was aware again that she was sitting outside, on the ground, naked. For a moment, things had been comfortable with Penny, in a way they almost never were for Alice with anyone, and she could only partially attribute that to the alcohol. But now he was silent and brooding, and Alice had the feeling that anything she said would be stepping on a landmine. Not that Penny would blow up, of course; no matter what Quentin said, she’d never seen evidence he had a temper. But he could shut down, and then she’d never get him talking again.

And then they’d fail the test. Alice was a little surprised to find that wasn’t the only reason Penny shutting down bothered her.

Penny blinked and raised his head. “Talk about what?” He sounded like his normal, don’t-care-about-anything self, but the way he looked more over her shoulder than in her eyes, and how he immediately reached for the bottle, gave him away.

“The Beast,” she said.

He snorted. “Why would I talk about that? We summoned the moth-faced motherfucker, he killed a professor right in front of us, now maybe he’s keeping some girl chained up in your boyfriend’s fantasyland. Nothing much secret there.”

She ignored the urge to protest that Quentin wasn’t her boyfriend, noticing instead the way Penny winced when he set the bottle down. “What are you hiding?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The ropes are hurting you. You were lying.” He shot her a mild glare, but she set her jaw and went on. “The whole point of this exercise is to tell the truth. If you’re going to lie, you’ll fail. And so will I.”

She didn’t expect the guilt-trip to work, but Penny grimaced, looking away. “Don’t see the point of this anyway,” he muttered.

Alice blinked, surprised. “Really? I thought of any of us, you’d figure it out first.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, you were the one who guessed that the second trial was about us working together, not magic, right?” He nodded. “So’s this one.”

“Telling each other secrets isn’t the same thing as figuring out that I can catch a fish and you can shoot a pheasant. Which was badass, by the way.”

Alice knew she was blushing again and was glad that it was too dark for him to notice. “Thanks. And you’re right. It’s not the same thing. It’s a lot harder. The second trial was a first step, probably just to test whether we could, I don’t know, appreciate each other’s strengths or something. I guess you were really the one who passed that.” It disgruntled, slightly, that she would have failed the test if he hadn’t put it together. Would she have just stood out there in the forest, trying to pull a tree down with a rope like an idiot? Maybe she should be grateful he’d kept her from finding out. “This one is to see if we can work together more - “ The word _intimately_ flashed through her brain, but she ignored it as too overwrought. “- closely.”

“Okay,” Penny said, looking doubtful. “But where does that get us? Aren’t magicians supposed to be alcoholic loners with emotional problems?” He laughed. “I’ve got this mentor they sent me, Stanley? Dude lives in a trailer that I don’t think anyone else ever goes to and drinks a fifth for breakfast. Really doubt he’s doing a lot of close emotional bonding with other magicians, but he seems to do just fine.”

Alice couldn’t figure in what world being totally alone and trying to destroy your own liver qualified as “doing just fine,” but she supposed Penny meant magically. “Well, sure, any of us can do magic on our own,” she said. “But the really powerful stuff, like, reality-bending, world-changing magic? You can’t do that stuff alone. If you try - well, it goes badly.” The image of Charlie, laughing madly and lit with blue flames, flashed through her head, but she pushed it away, as she’d done every time she thought of her brother since the day she’d decided she didn’t blame Quentin for his loss. “But magicians working together can do amazing things. Even my parents - I mean, half the time they hate each other, and they aren’t very good magicians anyway, but get them on the same page and working together and I’ve seen them do incredible casting. It’s called cooperative magic.”

“Huh.” He looked conflicted, and for once Alice didn’t have to struggle to figure out what someone else was thinking. Penny might have better social skills than she did, but he probably hadn’t ever had more friends. “So what kind of magic would we do anyway? If we could cooperate?”

She shrugged. “All kinds of things.” The half-formed idea she’d had in her head the last few days flickered by, and she thought, _why not?_ “Rescue a girl from a dungeon in a stupid fantasyland, maybe?”

He stared at her, unblinking, for a long moment. “Coldwater put you up to suggesting that?” he asked. “‘Cause I’m not joining in his nerdgasm tourist trip with the elves.”

“There are no elves in Fillory,” Alice said, and grinned. “Or so Quentin keeps telling me. And he has no idea I’ve even thought about this.” Quentin was too busy moping because he believed Penny had been “chosen” by Fillory over him. Alice didn’t see the point in worrying about whether an entire world deemed you worthy, and besides, apparently there was a girl to be rescued. That was the only good thing magic might be able to do that she’d heard of since she’d come to Brakebills. “I’m not saying it would work,” she cautioned. “We’d have to figure out how to get there. I guess you don’t know how?” He shook his head. “But maybe the four of us could figure out a way.”

Penny nodded thoughtfully. “If we got her… I mean, that kind of almost makes up for Professor Van Der Weghe, and the Dean’s eyes.”

Alice hadn’t thought about it that way, mostly because the Dean’s blindness and poor, boring Professor Van Der Weghe were things she didn’t like to think about at all. It had been for Charlie, and as long as there was a chance at getting him back, those sacrifices had felt like they were worth it, but now... Well, Penny had a point. “We’d have to be able to do cooperative magic, though,” she reminded him.

“Right.” He rubbed his lip. “I got this,” he said, abruptly, twisting his arm to show her a tattoo, faintly visible in the darkness. “It keeps me in place, you know? Astral projection only. I can’t control the other thing and I don’t want to die in an avalanche or get a leg cut off or something.”

“Understandable,” Alice said, though it was also oddly specific.

“But if there was another way to get there…” He nodded. “Yeah, I guess I’d be in.”

“It would be dangerous.”

“You don’t hear that girl screaming in your head every time you try to meditate.” Penny sighed. “Alright, fine, you win. What do you want to know about, the Beast?”

“Might as well start there,” Alice said, settling in to listen. The awkward silence had passed, they were finally talking about something real, and she once again thought there was a chance they’d pass this test.


	3. Smaller Truths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning for internalized abelism/sanism in this chapter.

The clock was at ten-thirty. An hour and a half to go. Quentin leaned forward with his hands braced on the edge of the building, and said, “Fine. Okay? Fine.”

“What?” Kady looked over from where she’d wandered to the other end of the roof. Her mocking had faded over the last half hour and she now sounded as disgruntled with this whole project as he was. A while back, she’d kicked the wall and then spent several minutes swearing under her breath at her bruised toes. Quentin had tried to tease her about it and gotten a glare. That was the last time they’d spoken.

But now she was paying attention, which was too bad, because a part of Quentin – a tiny part, but still – was sort of hoping she was ready to give up and quit. Would he be given another chance if his partner ditched him before midnight? Maybe they’d let him run the trial with someone else who hadn’t finished, maybe Gretchen from his Elements of Spellcasting class – she definitely wouldn’t tease him about being a nerd the whole time – or maybe Alice wouldn’t have finished. What could Penny’s innermost truth even be? He was a hostile, traitorous dick?

He became aware that Kady was glaring at him impatiently. “Right, so, uh, I might have something,” he said. “I mean, I maybe – I don’t think it’s _the_ thing or anything,” _please don’t let it be_, “but I could, maybe, um… tell you. About it. That’s got to be better than just standing here for the next hour.”

He expected another joke about his stuttering, but Kady just shrugged and wandered back over to him. “Shoot.”

“Okay, yeah. So.” Quentin took a deep breath and closed his eyes, reminding himself that the rules of the trial seemed to at least imply that they wouldn’t tell anyone else each other’s secrets, and Kady was basically a stranger and he didn’t care about her opinion of him. And who was she going to tell, anyway? The only person she talked to was Penny, and he already knew.

“So, when I was in high school,” he said, “I, um, I got diagnosed with clinical depression. Actually, with a whole bunch of stuff, but that was the big one.” He opened his eyes, pausing for a reaction. Kady just gave him an impatient shrug. “Right, and so I was in therapy, and on meds for… basically all of the last, uh, eight years? Until I got to Brakebills.” She still didn’t look like she was judging him, so he was able to look away and breathe again and keep going. “And sometimes those things, they didn’t work so well. And I ended up in the hospital a couple of times. Psych hospital, you know?” Still nothing. “So, yeah, that’s… that’s basically been my life since I was fourteen. I manage my shit for a while, and I think things are going okay and I’m going to be, I don’t know, not cured, but at least functional, and then my brain just… I used to tell Julia that it breaks. I just get to this point where I – I can’t feel anything, or I feel too much and it’s all bad, and I try to handle it until I spiral out and then I just can’t get out of bed. And sometimes it’s…worse. And then I end up back in the hospital.” She was still silent. Wasn’t she going to say anything? “I don’t think that’s – I mean, that can’t be my innermost truth, right?” The ropes were still tight on his wrists, and that was reassuring. He was more than his fucked up brain. He had to be.

She shifted, looking away from him, frowning like she was actually thinking about it. When she spoke, she said the last thing he was expecting. “Julia, your friend, she knows about this?” 

“Uh, yeah? I mean, we were friends our whole lives. She obviously noticed that I kept disappearing from school.”

“Right, but she knows you’re all… whatever.”

“I’m what?” _Was_ she judging him?

“That it bothers you. To think about it.” She gave him a look he couldn’t read. “It does bother you, right?”

“Of course it bothers me! I’m this… Like, honestly, nothing bad has ever even happened to me in my life.” _Not like you_, he barely stopped himself from saying. “I don’t have an excuse, I’m just this person who can’t fucking function half the time, who had to take drugs and go to doctors for years just to pass for normal, and I didn’t even do it that well. And now I’m here, and everything’s supposed to be better, and it is, I mean, obviously, I have friends here and, and I’m not just, just useless - but I - I’m terrified that someday it won’t be enough and then I’ll... I’ll never be _more_ than this.” He shook his head, swallowing, suddenly aware that his voice and his hands and his whole body were shaking. “How could that not bother me?”

She was still silent. Quentin turned away, pacing a few steps, trying to get a deep breath. After a moment, he thought _fuck it_, and crouched down against the side of the wall, just a few inches from sitting bare-assed on the roof, and dropped his head. Every breath he took made his chest burn. He curled his hands into fists to keep from clawing at his own skin.

By the time he had himself under control, he was aware that Kady had moved closer; he could see her feet from the corner of his eye. “Sorry,” he muttered, tipping his head back to rest against the wall. “I didn’t mean to dump all that on you.”

“Comes with the territory, with this test,” she said. “I bet half the class is having a meltdown right now.”

He huffed a laugh. “You aren’t.”

“Not my turn yet.” She moved again, crouching in the same position he was in, still several feet away. She didn’t look at him, eyes focused on her bound wrists. “And your friend knows about all this?” she asked again.

He couldn’t figure out her obsession with Julia. “Not in so much detail. We don’t talk about it all that much.” _Not anymore_, he thought, remembering back to the days when he could cry on Julia’s shoulder for hours and she never gave him that pitying look. “But she knows most of it. Why?” It took him a second to realize. “Oh, because then it’s not a secret, you mean? I guess you’re right.” Maybe the ropes were a little looser, but they were still in place, holding him back when he tried to raise his hands to tug at his hair in one of his nervous gestures. Not quite as tight, but still there. “Well, then, that was a waste of time.” A truth, but at least not _the_ truth. “I’m kind of relieved.”

“Why?” She shook her head. “I mean, I get it, being fucked up in the head sucks, but at least you’d get those ropes off.”

“Yeah, and then I’d have to live knowing my innermost truth is ‘I’m sad a lot.’” 

“There are worse things to be.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Angry all the time.”

That made him smile. “You’re like the Hulk.” She gave him an incredulous look and he laughed. “Sorry. But that’s definitely not a secret.”

“No, obviously,” she said, turning her head away so he couldn’t see her face, just her mass of curly hair. There was a note in her voice that it took him too long to recognize. _Shutting down_, he thought. She was trying to open up and he was being an idiot who couldn’t see past himself, like always.

“Sorry,” he said. “Um… why are you angry?”

“Forget it,” she said. “I just - I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you do.” This glare wasn’t enough to do more than mildly worry him. Maybe she was softening, or maybe he was developing an immunity. “Come on. Passing this test matters to you. I know it does. Just try telling me something.”

“Wow, you really have been to a lot of shrinks, huh?” She turned away, ducking her head down so her hair hid her face in a gesture so familiar that it took Quentin a minute to realize he recognized it from himself. 

He’d almost given up on her saying anything and was going to suggest they go back to interrogating each other’s sex lives when she said, “You want to hear a story?”

“I do.”

“Okay.” She sat back, right on the ground like she’d forgotten she was naked, leaning against the wall. Quentin tried not to think about how many people had probably done this trial in this spot. The sigh Kady let out made her whole body shudder. “So, maybe a year ago I was involved with this girl.”

“Involved as in…?”

“As in sex, Coldwater.” She tilted her head in his direction, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t turn this into some gross lesbian fantasy.”

“I wasn’t going to - I mean, I don’t - “ Well, not about Kady, and anyway, dreams were private. 

“You were. All straight guys do.” She shook her head. “As soon as they hear you hook up with girls - “

“I’m not straight!” Quentin froze under her sudden attention. “I mean, I - I have, with guys - like, not a lot, just maybe a couple times, and not… really, um…”

“Interesting,” she said, a smirk spreading across her face. Her eyes dropped to his still-bound wrists. “Apparently not that important. But we are definitely coming back to this once I finish my story.”

“I don’t see why that’s necessary,” he muttered.

“Okay, but shut up. Just listen.” She shook her hair out of her face and turned away again, addressing herself to the ground a few feet in front of her. “So, this girl. She was older, fun, wild, always had money even though I had no idea where it came from. Hot, obviously.”

“Well, yeah, you wouldn’t be with someone who wasn’t,” Quentin said, because his mouth was no longer in communication with his inhibitions.

“We are also coming back to that.” Kady sighed. “So, obviously you can guess where this is going.”

“You fell in love with her and then she turned out to not be so great after all?”

“Not love,” Kady said, sounding horrified. “But - I trusted her.” It was clear that trust was a bigger deal than love in her estimation. “It’s not like I knew her that long or anything. I was an idiot.”

“It’s not idiotic to trust someone.”

“It is when you have no idea who they really are or what they really want,” Kady said. “But M - this girl. She just seemed so together and I… kind of wanted to be like her.” She had worked a piece of the rope in her hand around to her fingers and was picking at it, eyes on it like she was completely absorbed in what she was doing. “She told me she’d graduated from Brakebills.”

“Wait, she was a magician?” Kady gave him the stop-interrupting look. “Sorry, I just - I mean, right, you said you knew magicians before you got here?”

“I grew up with magicians. My mom’s a hedge. You know what that means, right? Like your friend.”

“Yeah, I - yeah. Um, like… less-official magicians?” _Sad and desperate people_ floated through his head, but he doubted Kady would want to hear Eliot’s opinion of the world she’d come from. 

“Sure, let’s go with that.” Kady rolled her eyes. “Anyway. Most hedges teach their kids magic, if they have potential, because we aren’t waiting for some fancy school to decide who gets to learn and who doesn’t. But Brakebills is still - it’s a legend. Maybe a lot of hedge kids get asked to test, but if they don’t get in, they don’t remember, right? But you have that many people in a community all getting taken and then getting their memories wiped, eventually something slips through. So we all grow up knowing about it, this magic school off somewhere out of the city where they teach the real spells, but no one knows who gets invited, and no one expects to get in.”

“But you did.”

“Yeah, because this girl, she said if I did some spells with her, and learned some things she could teach, I’d get invited. It’s all about what magic you can do and how strong it is. It has to show up on their radar, you know? Shoddy spells to light candles aren’t going to cut it.”

_Or sparks_, Quentin thought. But Julia had pinged the radar on those globes in Fogg’s office, even if she wasn’t good enough to pass the test. The thought made him squirm, for reasons he didn’t want to think about.

“So she taught you stuff? Like battle magic?” She gave him a surprised look and he shrugged. “They don’t even teach that here, but you knew what you were doing with the Beast that day.”

“You seemed to know what you were doing when you threw the same spell at Penny,” she pointed out.

Of course Penny had told her about that. “I just copied what you did.”

“Really? That’s actually kind of impressive.” She gave him a considering look. “Maybe you aren’t such a terrible magician after all.”

“Funny.”

Kady looked like she was going to say more, then shrugged. “Well, no, not battle magic. I already knew that. But other stuff, stronger spells than my mom and the other hedges knew. She told me I had to use magic all the time, for everything, and the more I knew the better the chance I would pass the test. We did a lot of casting together. She made me feel like I was… like magic made me better. Stronger.” She twirled the rope between her fingers. “I’d never felt like that about it before. I mean, it was always there in place of throwing a punch if I needed it, but it had never made me feel good, until then. The way sex feels, or a really good high before you start to crash.”

“And it worked, right? Because you got invited to take the test and you passed.”

“I didn’t really expect it to. Shit like Brakebills doesn’t happen for people like me. It’s not like I even really wanted it that much.” Kady winced, glaring down at her wrists. “I mean, I didn’t at first. I - ” She groaned, so frustrated with the ropes and their truth-spell that Quentin risked a grin. “Fine! I wanted it! I wanted to… be someplace different.” She bit her lip, her voice dropping. “Or maybe be someone different. “ 

Quentin didn’t know what to say. The prospect of having his own thoughts, his own feelings, reflected back at him through Kady Orloff-Diaz of all people would never have occurred to him before that night, and like every time he’d had this experience of understanding someone on a fundamental level, it made him freeze, too scared to reach out and break the connection.

“And then one day I went over to her place,” Kady went on, oblivious to his struggle. “And she wasn’t alone.“ 

“She was cheating on you?”

“Would you stop?” She shook her head impatiently. “It’s not about that. No. My mom was there.”

“Your _mother_?”

“Yeah.” Kady shot him a look, like she was expecting him to say something else, though Quentin had no idea what. “Look, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of crap about hedges from Eliot or whoever, and it’s bullshit. Most of them are good people, and some of them could blow any Brakebills grad off the map with the shit they can do. But my mom, well, she fits the stereotype. I mean, she’s powerful, but she’s… it’s like a drug for her. Magic. Especially doing magic with other people. And she’s done some really stupid shit to get more of it.” She took a deep breath. “And, it turned that this girl, she was…” Her jaw clenched. “She was someone who’d helped my mom out of a mess of her own making, and she wanted something in return. That’s why she found me. The whole thing was - fucking stupid.” Quentin wondered if Kady even realized how tightly her hands were clenched around the rope. “She was using me. Training me. And she told me she was going to keep using me.”

“You mean, using you for…” Quentin had no idea what to say to that, but Kady gave him a disgusted look.

“No. Stop with the pervy bullshit. Hooking up was just— I don’t even know what that was about, just figuring out if I could cut it or…I don’t know. No, she wanted me to get into Brakebills so I could help her steal from the school.”

“Oh. Wow, that’s… holy shit.”

“Yeah.” Kady looked like she was waiting for some reaction he hadn’t given. “I told her no, obviously, but I guess my mom, she made a deal, to get out of her mess. And I was it.” 

“I’m…” It was stupid and she was probably going to punch him for it, but he didn’t know what else to say. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Kady slumped back against the wall, breaking eye contact. “So, I got really pissed off and threw that spell you like so much at her - way stronger than I ever had before, I took a chunk out of her wall - and I left. And the next day I got invited to take the Brakebills exam.”

“Oh? _Oh_. Because of the spell.’

“I mean, it might be a coincidence, but yeah, probably. Battle magic tends to ring a lot of alarms if it’s that strong, and I was crazy strong that day.”

_Magic doesn’t come from sunshine and ice cream, for any of us,_ he remembered. He guessed Kady’s mystery lover had heard that one too. “And she knew that would happen. I mean, that you would react like that - “

“I’m predictable, see,” Kady said. The look she turned on him was almost her usual no-shits-given bullshit, but she couldn’t quite make it work. There was something shaky around the edges. “She set me up. Wound me up like a fucking toy and set me off.”

Quentin had no idea what to say to that. Except… “So what did you do?” She gave him a confused look. “You passed the test. What did you do after that?”

She stared at him for a long minute, then shook her head. “What do you think I did? I stole shit.”

*****

“The first time I heard him, I was four or five. My mom, she was sick…” Penny closed his eyes for a moment. “Or, maybe on something, I don’t really know. I was just a kid. I couldn’t wake her up and I didn’t know what to do.”

“I can’t imagine,” Alice said. Her parents might have been useless in almost every situation, but Alice had never been alone as a child.

Penny didn’t seem to hear her. “I was just… you know, a little kid, crying and shit or whatever… and then I heard this voice. In my head.” He laughed roughly. “I know, you’re thinking I must have been freaked out, but I wasn’t. I always heard voices in my head, my whole life. I thought that was normal until I got old enough to talk about it and people started treating me like I was crazy. Then I learned to shut up.” Alice knew how that worked. She still remembered the look on the face of her kindergarten teacher, a gentle woman named Ms. Molly who she’d liked to pretend was her mother, when Alice had said that her dad could make lights in the sky with his fingers. “But yeah, so, voices, that wasn’t new. But this voice, he was actually talking to me, and he told me, he said, ‘Think about smoke. Think about fire. And then do what I tell you.’ And he taught me the spell, and I set off the fire alarm in our apartment building.”

“You did a fire spell when you were five?” Alice was impressed in spite of herself. Lots of people, probably most of the kids who got into Brakebills, did magic young without meaning to, but she’d never heard of anyone doing something that real at such a young age. Even Charlie had been almost ten.

“I did. I mean, it was a tiny fire, just enough to get the alarm going, and I had no idea what I did, but yeah. Made a neighbor come running over to find out what was happening, and he called the cops and got help for my mom.” He played with the bottle of rum between his hands. They’d both stopped drinking a while ago, but he seemed to like having something to occupy his hands. “Then a couple months later, when I was at my first foster home, I heard him again. That time he taught me how to scare an older kid who was messing with me. And that’s how it was for a while. Just every couple of months or so he’d turn up, usually when I needed something, and he’d teach me. I always remembered what he taught. I could always do it again.”

“You were a really good student, for that young,” Alice said.

“Or he was a good teacher. When I got older, it was more serious stuff. I didn’t always hang out with the most law-abiding crowd, you know? I got in trouble a few times. He always got me out. Never ended up in the real serious shit some of my friends did, because I had him.”

“He was your friend.”

“He was a monster who was fucking with me,” Penny said, any softness in his voice disappearing. He gave her a dark look, and for a second Alice thought she was seeing the Penny who could get someone else expelled from school for no reason than because he didn’t like him. “I was an idiot who thought some fucking voice was - “ He cut himself off, shaking his head. “I mean, I asked him questions. I wasn’t completely dumb. I tried to figure out who he was. But he never answered them, so I decided I didn’t care. None of my foster families or my friends were magicians, at least not that I knew about, so he was what I had. Better some weird voice than…” He shook his head.

“Than nothing?” Alice asked. This glare was a lot weaker. “You were young, and lonely and you couldn’t trust anyone. And there was one person who understood you. Who helped you figure it all out. Of course he meant everything.”

Penny nodded slowly. “Uh, are we still talking about me?”

“Obviously. Keep going.”

“There’s nothing else to tell that you don’t already know.” He paused. “Alice…”

She thought he might like it better when he was getting angry than when he sounded soft. “My brother,” she said. “It’s nothing, it’s not… it’s not important.” She couldn’t hide the wince when the ropes tightened.

“Uh-uh,” Penny said. “We had an agreement. Cooperative magic, remember?”

“Fine.” She bit her lip. “My parents weren’t… I couldn’t trust them, growing up. My mom, I don’t know if she never wanted a second kid or never wanted a girl or what, but she didn’t… like me, I guess. She could never say anything nice about me. Even when she tried, it was always a backhanded compliment. Like, ‘Alice, you’re so good at school, it’s too bad the other smart kids don’t want to be friends with you.’ Or, ‘Alice, you looked so pretty today, why don’t you try to look like that every day.’ Stuff like that. And my dad, I love him, and I know he loves me, but he’s not reliable, or stable. If he had to choose between me and my mom, or me and, I don’t know, his own ego, I always knew where he’d come down.” She shook her head, impatient with herself. “God, this must sound so ridiculous to you - “

“It sounds really hard,” Penny said.

She sighed. “Yeah. But I had Charlie.”

Like that said it all. Like everything that followed from her having Charlie was self-evident. It always had been for her. She had her brother, and that meant the world made sense, and even if she wasn’t exactly happy, ever, there was safety and stability, and someday, maybe, she would have a different sort of life. When Charlie graduated from college, he’d always promised, she could come live with him. Then it had been after Brakebills, once he got in there, and she hadn’t minded waiting. Alice had never been good at imagining what life would be like when she was an adult, but she could imagine a life where Charlie helped her figure it out.

“He was older?”

“Yeah. Four years.”

“What happened to him?” Penny’s voice was very gentle.

“He came here. And he died.” Though Penny obviously knew that, what with how they’d tried to summon his spirit like idiot children playing with a ouija board.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. They sent us a letter - it was Dean Fogg who signed it, I remember seeing his name - but all it said was an accident. My parents refused to ask any questions. They said there was no point when people died at Brakebills. Nobody ever asks questions. I think my mom just didn’t care and my dad wouldn’t stand up to her.”

“I don’t know,” Penny said. “I’m pretty sure if the Beast had eaten our faces that day in class, the school would have written a whole bunch of really vague letters and covered the whole thing up.”

“Maybe,” Alice said irritably, “but they still could have asked. He was just gone, and it was like they wanted to move on to the next party, or affair. Any distraction they could come up with so they didn’t have to think about him.”

“But not you.”

“No. I spent years figuring out how to get into Brakebills so I could take the exam. So I could figure out what happened to him.”

“And did you? I mean, I know the summoning thing didn’t exactly work out like you planned, but did you learn anything?”

“Yeah. I know what happened.” And there was no secret to share there. No deeper mystery, no utmost truth. Just Charlie, dying because he’d cared more about the people around him than they deserved, and ending up in a box because Quentin cared more about Alice than she deserved. “And now I’m stuck here. I have no idea what to do next. I never thought further than this.”

“I get that,” he said. “I mean, I never thought further than tomorrow. Just survive, you know. Keep my head down. Drink enough, or smoke enough, to keep the voices from making me go crazy. Once I got here, it was just, learn enough to, I don’t know, have some kind of life someday.” He laughed. “But I have no idea what that would look like.”

“Would that life have magic in it?” she asked. “Or do you just want to learn enough to not accidentally kill yourself?” Because she’d been thinking about that a lot, why everyone assumed whatever her life looked like, it had to have magic in it. Just because she was good at it? Charlie had been good at it. Where had that gotten him? Locked in a box forever. “My aunt, Genji, she said that Brakebills was the best place for me to be while I was figuring things out, but I don’t know. Sometimes I think I did the right thing when I left and I shouldn’t have come back.”

There would have been no Quentin in her life, all puppy-dog eyes and lighting up whenever he saw her, if she’d done that, though. No Eliot teaching her how to drink like a person over the age of sixteen, endearing in how seriously he took the whole thing, even if she kind of thought he was trying to turn her into an alcoholic. No surprisingly fun encounters with Margo, so openly manipulative but always acting like she thought Alice was in on the game. There wouldn’t have been this quiet, strange, intimate night with Penny, either.

“I don’t know.” Penny smiled wryly. “When I first got here, it was mostly about the mind stuff.” He gestured vaguely towards his head. “I just wanted to stop the voices, or at least figure out how to only hear the ones I wanted to, you know? I mean, at Brakebills, where everyone except your boy can control themselves, it’s different, but out there in the world, it’s like being assaulted all the time. I just wanted quiet. I didn’t really think much about magic beyond that. Then I got hit with the Traveler stuff.” He stared down at the ground between their folded feet. “Professor Sunderland, she’s kind of an expert on Traveling, and she says… I guess Travelers, we don’t really have normal lives. Not, you know, getting married, couple of kids, nice place, that kind of thing. I thought maybe she was full of shit, but Stanley pretty much backs her up.” He shrugged. “So, a no-magic life really isn’t in the cards for me. Guess it’s a good thing I never cared about that apple-pie life.”

Alice wondered if, before tonight, she would have been so easily able to tell when Penny was lying.

“I guess me almost getting you expelled in the first month didn’t help with your lay-low plan.” She winced at that. She’d felt guilty about Quentin, sort of, though she’d justified it by thinking that he’d forced his way into her plans and he had that mark on his hand, he was part of it somehow. But she hadn’t really thought about what it would mean if Penny or Kady had been expelled because of her. “Sorry,” she said.

“Aw, that’s alright.” Penny sounded relieved to have left the deeper revelations behind for the moment. “I paid it forward to Coldwater, anyway.”

“Which was not your nicest moment.” She tried to give him a stern look.

“Hey, I told you. Survival. I need to be here.”

“Right.” She couldn’t blame him for that part, and of course he’d wanted Kady to stay, since they were together. “But why Quentin, and not me? I mean, you knew what the spell was actually supposed to do. You knew it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault, just dumb luck and the Beast taking advantage,” he said. “And Coldwater annoys me.” A weird expression went across his face. “Maybe I like you better,” he said, sounding almost cautious, then relaxed.

“Uh-huh.” She was blushing again, and she couldn’t keep blaming the rum. 

“And, um…” He gave an embarrassed laugh. “You made it up to me, you know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I tried to make sure they didn’t expel you. And then, yesterday, you kept me from being expelled too, so. Even.”

“Yesterday?” Alice frowned. “Did I even see you yesterday?”

“Yeah, no. So, um…” Penny rubbed a hand over his mouth. Alice had the impression that he was embarrassed, but also trying not to laugh. “The first trial? The translation thing?”

“Yeah?”

“That was pretty much impossible.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Not for you. For everyone else.”

“Well obviously not,” Alice said, squirming slightly. Maybe it was a little easier for her, because languages had always come naturally and codes were really just another kind of language, but - “If it was impossible, there wouldn’t be anyone left in our class right now. You passed, didn’t you?”

“I cheated.”

“What? How did you get away with that?”

Now he did laugh. “I didn’t. Eliot totally knew what we did. But I guess it didn’t matter, so long as we got the translation done.”

“We?” Alice said. Suddenly she remembered seeing Penny at one of the other tables that morning, with - . “Are you saying Quentin cheated?”

“It was his idea.”

“Unbelievable. And Eliot let you get away with it?” Actually, that part was completely believable. If Quentin had outright failed the test, Eliot would have found a way to let him stay anyway.

Penny shrugged. “I think that was the point . They don’t care if you decode some old spell because you’re good at translation, or because you can astrally project and read off someone else’s work. The point is that you get the spell.”

“So that’s how you did it? Wait, who - “ Alice narrowed her eyes. He grinned. “Penny. Did you cheat off me?” His grin widened. “Was that Quentin’s idea too?”

He laughed. _He has a nice laugh_, she noted absently. “Yes, but, I will defend him this one time - it was the obvious choice. I bet everyone who passed found some way to cheat off you. What can I say, you’re the smartest in the room.”

“Hmm.” Now she was the one trying not to smile. “Just for that, I’m going to tell Quentin you defended him.”

“Aw, come on, I - “ He winced and glared down at his hands. “Stupid fucking ropes. Okay, listen.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t… hate… Coldwater. He annoys me. A little. But I didn’t - I didn’t want to get him kicked out that day, alright? I just… I had to stay. And I wasn’t letting Kady get expelled when I was the one who dragged her into it. So it was the two of you, and, well, you seemed like you really needed to be here, you know? I figured, Quentin would probably be fine if they kicked him out, but you needed to find out what happened to your brother. So.” He shrugged again. “I made a call.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. “You’re wrong about Quentin,” she said finally. “He really wants to be here.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I’ve learned some things, since then.”

“But thank you.”

He smiled. His smile was also really nice. “You’re welcome.”


	4. Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter this time, so Quentin and Kady can catch up.

“Okay, come on, stop.”

“Just admit it, Coldwater.”

“I’m not admitting anything.”

“Just admit you have the hots for him and I’ll drop it.”

Quentin glared at her down the length of the wall they were leaning against. “I don’t have the hots for Penny!”

“You said you did. You said you found him ‘distracting.’” Kady accompanied the words with a flutter of eyelashes that looked ridiculous on her.

“No, I said, it was distracting living with someone who would just whip off his clothes with no notice or warning, any time of the day.”

“Why would that be distracting if you weren’t taking a peek?”

“Because it’s - it’s - “ Quentin couldn’t help laughing at her expression.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Don’t worry, I get it. And it’s fair. I check out yours sometimes too.”

“Check out - “ For a horrified moment, Quentin had to fight looking down. It was dark enough that they couldn’t really see each other’s nudity, but Kady couldn’t be suggesting - 

“Your boy.” She rolled her eyes at his probably bewildered expression. “Eliot.”

“My… “ Quentin stared at her. “I am not sleeping with Eliot!”

“Seriously?” Kady’s teasing expression faded. “Wait, you aren’t? Not even a little?”

“A little sex?”

“I just mean, I know you’re not dating, ‘cause I don’t think Eliot’s really the dating type, but you guys aren’t even hooking up?”

“No.” And Quentin was pretty sure she was wrong about Eliot and dating - vague memories of one particularly drunken night where Eliot had gotten sentimental drifted through his head - but telling Kady that would make her point for her.

“Huh. When I thought you were straight, I figured you were just oblivious to the way he flirts with you, but since you said… then what was going on that night when I moved into the cottage? Remember, when I broke down the door?”

“Hard to forget. I think I got splinters from that.” She gave him a look, eyebrows raised. “What? We were just hanging out. Having a drink. Like we did with you, after you got there.” He paused. “Eliot doesn’t flirt with me.” No more than he did with everyone, anyway.

“I don’t know. The two of you that night looked pretty intimate.” She dragged the word out.

Quentin sighed. “Not like that. I just had a bad day and he was being supportive.”

“Supporting you with his dick.”

“Kady!”

“Fine, fine.” Kady leaned back against the wall, watching him while Quentin tried not to squirm under her gaze. “So is it Alice?”

“Is what Alice? Oh, you mean, am I - no. We’re just friends.”

“Margo?”

_“What?”_

“I saw the two of you sneak off at that party the night of the Welters tournament.”

“We ‘snuck off’ to talk.” He shook his head. “Why are you always watching me, anyway?”

“I’m observant.” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re seriously telling me you have that many hot people following you around and you’re not banging any of them?”

“Do you not understand the concept of friendship?”

A look flickered across her face that made him feel bad, for a second, but it didn’t last. “Of course,” she said. “But when you’ve got friends that look like those ones, I’m just saying, can’t hurt to spice the friendship up a little.” She shifted sideways to face him. “Okay, let’s play a game. If you were going to sleep with one of your hot friends, which one would it be?”

“I’m not playing that game.”

“Come on, Coldwater. Look, maybe it will turn out your secret passion for Margo Hanson is your innermost guiding truth.”

“Why, because she’s the one you’d choose?” Kady just smirked and shrugged. He sighed. “Fine. Only because I want to move on from this topic.” With forty-five minutes to go, they’d gone back to the technique of questioning each other, but Kady had proven annoying single-minded.

Quentin closed his eyes, pretending to take her question seriously. It didn’t matter how he answered, since he doubted his feelings about Eliot, or Alice, or Margo, had anything to do with his “utmost truth.” It was just a question of which one she’d make less fun of him for. Alice, probably, and it wasn’t like that was a bad answer to the question, though he felt a little guilty since Alice would be mortified if she knew. He was sure she’d never thought of him that way. She’d never given any sign when they were together, and they were together almost all the time. They’d studied every night since she’d come back from her break, at least for a few hours most nights until Eliot showed up and dragged him away…

Kady would laugh her head off if he said Eliot, but Quentin couldn’t deny that he’d had the thought a few times, usually when Eliot was hauling him around campus, hand gripping Quentin’s without a trace of self-consciousness, or when they were drinking and Eliot would drape an arm around him, like a casual friend, except that he’d keep it there, sorting of hugging Quentin against his side while he went on about whatever topic, usually something Quentin couldn’t follow about wine or magic or some month-long orgy thing he and Margo had gone to in Europe. Or there were the handful of times Quentin had woken up in Eliot’s bed after a night of more serious drinking, and discovered that he’d pressed himself against Eliot in his sleep. There was one morning in particular, Quentin had woken up to Eliot spooned behind him, an arm possessively around his waist, and yeah, he was pretty sure Eliot had just mistaken him for his latest conquest, but for a second, he’d had the thought.

That Margo had been on the other side, sleeping with her head on his arm and her hair spread across his face, hadn’t interrupted the thought so much as just confused it.

After all, Eliot had once volunteered to come seduce him if he got kicked out of Brakebills. Quentin had been preoccupied with the crushing fear of losing magic and the school and everything that made life feel worth it for the first time in a while to pay attention to what his friend was saying, but later, he’d played those words over in his head and wondered. Maybe. A little.

But then he’d wondered a bit, too, on days when the coffee shop on campus was crowded and Alice would sit beside him instead of at her usual spot on the other side of the table, their arms brushing, and he would feel a rightness at being that close to her. When Alice got excited about some new theoretical magic - she claimed she didn’t love magic, but Quentin thought it was more that she’d never let herself love it and the feeling only slipped through when she wasn’t paying attention - her eyes would light up and she’d talk faster and faster, and even though he almost never understood her, something about her resonated with him, in a way that left his chest tight with a feeling he couldn’t name. It was the same way when she’d talked about Charlie, that night on the edge of the fountain when she’d said she was sad all the time, this odd mix of understanding and yearning.

But that wasn’t the same thing as wanting to sleep with her. He was pretty sure. But then, getting touchy-feely with Eliot when he was drunk didn’t mean that either, necessarily. Quentin was a clingy drunk, always had been. Julia could attest to that.

Invoking Julia didn’t help him with this problem, at all.

“Sure, let’s go with Margo,” he said finally, then remembered too late that he was wearing truth-telling ropes around his wrists. He winced in anticipation, but the ropes didn’t tighten painfully at a lie. They didn’t loosen at a truth, either.

Kady caught his reaction. “Something wrong?” she asked pointedly.

“No.” Quentin frowned at his wrists. “No, just…” It was probably Margo’s Jane Chatwin accent the night before that had done it. He did like an English accent.

“Quentin?”

“How do you tell? The difference, I mean?”

“Difference between what?”

“Wanting friendship with someone and wanting something else.”

Kady’s eyebrows shot up. “Weren’t you the one who just accused me of not knowing what friendship was?”

“But that’s not what I mean. I just - Okay.” Quentin sighed. “Obviously, you’re right. My friends are all very attractive people, and it’s not like I haven’t noticed. But lots of people are attractive, and I notice them too.”

“Penny, for example,” she said.

“Or you.” Quentin closed his eyes. “Please forget I said that.” She didn’t comment, but he kept his eyes closed anyway, very sure he didn’t want to see her reaction. “But that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to all those people, necessarily. But with people I’m friends with, it’s like, I’ve never been good at judging.”

“Judging if you want to sleep with them?” Kady sounded amused. “It’s usually a straight-forward thing.”

“No, it isn’t! At least, it never has been for me. There are people who - I want to be close to them, to connect with them, and then it gets all blurred and I can’t tell what’s the friendship and what’s more or if it even matters what the more is.” He groaned, tipping his head back against the wall, tired from the effort of trying to explain something he’d never been able to make sense of in his own head. “It’s probably just because I was in love with my best friend my whole life.”

“Right. Julia.” Once again, Kady sounded like she didn’t approve.

“Yeah, Julia. We’ve been friends since we were eight, and I’ve had a crush on her since I was twelve, and probably the only reason I didn’t fuck up our relationship sooner was because I knew she’d never go for me if I tried. I mean, why would she?”

Kady rolled her eyes. “Don’t try that self-pity bullshit when I just got over telling you about all the hot people on this campus panting after you.”

“I think you’re wrong,” he said. She just smiled. “Okay, what about you?” he asked.

“What about me?” She shrugged, looking laid-back, but Quentin got the feeling she was suddenly nervous.

“What about you and Penny? Are you guys friends-with-benefits, or something more?”

She snorted. “We’re fuck buddies,” she said.

Quentin shook his head. “No way.”

“Uh, you’ve heard us.”

“Yeah, obviously, you’re fucking, but I don’t believe that’s all of it.”

“Oh, you don’t?”

“Nope. I’ve seen the two of you together too much. I see the way he looks at you.”

“Right, and why are you staring at him again?”

Quentin shrugged. He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Penny was attractive, despite his personality, but that wasn’t why he watched him. Penny wasn’t his friend, not even close, but he’d seen into Quentin’s darkest thoughts, and he’d been… nice was probably stretching it, but he’d been respectful of them. He hadn’t once brought up anything he’d seen, and Quentin was sure, though he couldn’t say why, that Penny would never use anything that had happened in the cursed dreamscape against him. It left their relationship in an unsettling place. Here he was, always terrified that people would reject him once they saw what a mess he really was, and there was Penny, not a friend, but he knew Quentin better than any of his actual friends, better maybe even than Julia, who’d known enough to build the Scarlotti’s Web in the first place. More even than Kady after this night of secrets - Quentin had told her about his diagnoses, about the hospitals, but he hadn’t told her about how it felt, to be so lost in his own head. Penny knew all that.

So, yeah, he watched him. Maybe he just wanted to know something about Penny in return, even things out a little. And what he got was that Penny was guarded as hell, kept his defenses up around everyone - except Kady.

“Penny acts like everyone’s, maybe not the enemy, exactly, but like he can’t trust them. Except you,” he said. “He’s different around you. Softer or something.”

He expected her to be pleased, but Kady looked scared. “Yeah, you’re just not a good observer.”

Well, no, Quentin didn’t always read people well, but… “I’m sure of it. Why’s that a bad thing? What, you aren’t that into him or something?”

“We’re not like that,” Kady said, then added, more softly, “We can’t be like that.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I’m…”

“Stealing from the school?” She shot him a glare that barely registered. His immunity had grown. “Look, I wasn’t going to ask, but…”

“Why is that? Why didn’t you ask? I mean, you have the perfect opportunity here.”

“I don’t know.” Quentin shifted on the rough ground, uncomfortable. The truth was, he was wildly curious about what Kady was stealing from Brakebills and who she was giving it to - and something about that thought was tickling the back of his mind in a way that might matter more if he weren’t so tired and drained from all the sharing and still worried about passing this test - but he couldn’t rank his curiosity beside how embarrassed and angry about the whole thing she was. “Look, it’s probably not your big secret, right?” She shook her head. “Then it’s not my business. Not my stuff you’re stealing.”

She didn’t look like she believed him. “That’s really it?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, your situation sucks. That girl’s a bitch. And you’re doing it for your mom, so it’s not your fault, and admirable, in a messy, fucked-up way.”

“Messy and fucked-up, that’s me,” she said dryly.

“No, that’s me. You’re messy and fucked up and admirable.” She smiled, a little more relaxed than before, and Quentin thought about asking her why she thought she was fucked-up. Kady had told him a lot about the things that had happened to her, and the things she’d done, but she still hadn’t said very much about who she was other than that one comment about being angry. Quentin was willing to concede that most people hadn’t spent eight years analyzing their every last thought with the help of a professional, so maybe it wasn’t as clear to her, but she was obviously holding back and they only had half an hour to go.

But Kady had proven that she wasn’t going to be pushed into revealing anything, so instead he said, “So, Penny?”

She sighed. “Honestly? I have no idea what I think about Penny, other than, you know…” She smirked, and he nodded, but held her eyes and didn’t let her back down. “But, yeah, other than the amazing sex, I just - I can’t afford to think about that. I don’t have room in my life for that.”

“What, feelings?”

“People. At least not ones who trust me, or depend on me, or need me. I have my mom, and believe me, she’s enough.”

“But she’s your mom.” Kady looked at him like he was an idiot, and he shook his head. “No, I mean, I know you want to help her out with this situation and she has issues or whatever, but you can’t be responsible for her. She’s your mom. It’s supposed to go the other way around. She’s supposed to help you, or at least not get in the way.”

“Maybe that’s how it works in suburbia, or Brooklyn or wherever you’re from, but that’s not my life. I’ve been responsible for both of us since I don’t even remember when. Someone had to be.” She didn’t sound upset by it, just resigned.

“But that’s not fair.” He knew he sounded like a kid, but he couldn’t help it.

She clearly felt the same way. “No shit, but that’s how it is. Besides, when I was really little, it wasn’t so bad, you know? She was always trying to find a safe house for us to join and they never lasted, but she kept looking. She always wanted a family for us. But I never wanted that. I was fine with just the two of us. We never had a very stable place to live or money or anything like that, but we had this whole world for just us. She taught me magic and she would do magic for me. Amazing stuff.” Her voice was soft and sort of distant. Quentin held his breath. “And even when I got older and realized most of the magic she’d taught me was for stealing, and that she couldn’t, you know, handle shit, exactly? Like, that our situation was sometimes dangerous and she didn’t seem to realize? We were still close.” She bit her lip, a bitter expression slipping across her face. “I didn’t mind. I just thought, it’s fine, I can take care of it all and she can’t, so obviously I should just handle it and not complain. She worked, really hard jobs most of the time, and I could keep track of the money and make sure to find out how dangerous the people she was around really were. And then I left.” She was chipping at the polish on her nails, sharp angry gestures that sent little flakes flying. “Not like I even went far, but I wanted some space, you know. I was in school, working, I had friends, and I wanted to live my own life for a while.”

“Why shouldn’t you?”he asked. 

“That’s what I thought. And then she went and did a fucking heist and it blew up on her.”

“I’m sorry,” Quentin said. “But none of that’s your fault.” She gave him another dirty look. “I just mean, if you’re angry about all that? You deserve to be.”

“Thank you for your permission.”

“You know what I meant.”

“I guess.” She looked uncomfortable, probably with the sympathy. “Are you close to your parents?”

“No,” he said automatically, then corrected, “Well, I guess my dad and I, we’re closer now.”

“Since he got sick?” Now he was the one getting uncomfortable with sympathy.

“Yeah. And since I showed him the magic. We were never not close before, but it was more like we wanted to be close but couldn’t breach that gap, you know?” His father had never been someone who acted like he knew what to do with an emotionally-erratic, obsession-prone kid, or maybe just with anyone. For as long as he could remember his dad hadn’t had close friends, hadn’t dated since his parents got divorced. More and more, Quentin wondered if what he’d thought of as discomfort with him, personally, with the kind of kid he’d been, was just his father being as bad with people in general as Quentin was, and less inclined to try. “I wish we had more time to fix that.”

Kady nodded, and Quentin was glad that she didn’t try to give him some cheerful story about hoping for a recovery. “What about your mom?”

Quentin shifted restlessly. “She never really wanted kids, I don’t think. Or not the one she got, anyway.”

“Hmm.” Kady leaned back against the wall. “So, our parents fucked us up, I don’t know what to do with a real relationship, and you don’t even recognize when sex is being offered. That about what we’ve got?”

“Yeah.” Quentin sighed. “We’re not getting anywhere.” He paused. “You should trust Penny. He wouldn’t care about your situation. And he does care about you, I’m sure of it.”

“Right, because you’re the Penny expert. ‘Cause you want to bang him.”

“I do not.”

“And me. You want to be invited in.” She laughed, louder and freer than earlier, at his expression. “I’m onto you, Coldwater.”

“Shut up and ask me something else,” he said, but he was grinning too.


	5. Utmost Truths

“Social work? Really?” Alice couldn’t help smiling. 

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Just not what I pictured.” Not that she could say what she had pictured Penny majoring in during undergrad. It was a little hard to imagine him as a student at all, or as someone who’d lived in the same place for long enough to graduate. Traveler energy, maybe.

“Well, that was it. I wanted to help kids like me. My guidance counselor in high school thought it was a weird choice, too, if that makes you feel better.”

“I didn’t say it was weird, just unexpected. In a good way. What did the guidance counselor want you to do?”

“Something more ‘academically challenging.’ He was a snob who thought everyone who got A’s should be a lawyer or some capitalist shit. Not like he was volunteering to pay for that.” Penny glanced up at her face, and Alice did her best to give him an empty expression, but she knew she’d failed. “And that surprised you too.”

“No,” Alice said, then grinned. “Okay, maybe. But to be fair, you don’t exactly come across like a dedicated student.”

“Why not?” he asked.

She hesitated. “You just don’t seem like you care that much.”

An expression flickered across his face that made her wish they’d gone down a different path in their latest round of questioning. “That’s what you think, huh?”

“No, I just meant about school and things like that,” she protested. “Dumb stuff. Not that you don’t care about, I don’t know, people.” Though Alice couldn’t think of an example of Penny caring about people, actually, except - “You obviously care about Kady. You’ve been inseparable since the first month we were here.”

He smirked. “That could just be the amazing sex.”

Oh, god, she was going to actually die of blushing, and he would think it was because he had mentioned sex, and not because he was grinning like that while he did, lazy and self-satisfied. “No,” she said firmly. “Or, well, maybe, but that wouldn’t explain why you’re always holding hands and trying to get in the same study groups for everything. Or why you smile at her all the time.”

“I do?” He looked surprised.

“Sure.”

“Huh.” 

Alice laughed. “Did you not realize you had feelings for her?”

‘No, I knew. Obviously I knew.” Penny tried to shrug it off, but in the last few hours Alice had gotten good at telling the difference between the real Penny and the facade he wore. “I just didn’t think I was showing it to everyone.”

“Well, what’s the harm? It’s not like she isn’t just as into you.” He gave her an odd look, like he wanted to ask something, and she rolled her eyes. “You don’t know that either?”

“Kady’s a difficult person to know,” he muttered.

“She can’t be worse than you.” Alice wondered why she’d said that. She _had_ gotten to know him, over the last few hours. “I mean, you’re a really sweet and genuine person, but you don’t open up easily.” 

He smiled slowly. “You picked up all that, huh?” he said.

Her face was burning. “So maybe you two are perfect for each other.”

“Yeah,” he said. His tone was wistful. Then he laughed, unconvincingly. “Or maybe that just means we’re doomed. Most relationships need at least one person who can do the whole having-feelings thing.”

She hadn’t said he didn’t _have_ feelings - the opposite, really - but she thought he knew that and wouldn’t appreciate her pointing it out. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a relationship.” 

“Yeah?” He grinned. “What about Coldwater?”

“Quentin and I aren’t dating,” she said, exasperated.

“Oh, I know that. If you were, he’d never shut up about it. But would you be into that?”

Alice opened her mouth, then shut it.

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Penny said.

“No,” Alice said. “We’re not… it’s just…” She sighed. “Quentin is sweet, and nice to me. He wanted to be my friend, which isn’t a thing that happens a lot.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true. I’m not likable. I was incredibly rude to him at the beginning of our friendship. I honestly don’t know why he stuck around.”

“Because you’re interesting and smart and insightful and a million times cooler than he deserves in a friend?”

She gave him a look. “He’s friends with Eliot. And Margo.”

Penny shrugged. “Yeah, and what, because they can throw a great party that makes them a better choice for friends? Anyway, you’re friends with Eliot. I’ve seen you guys at parties.”

Alice did consider Eliot a friend; she just doubted he felt the same way. She was an experiment of some kind, geek-of-the-month since Quentin had graduated to someone worthy of more than a few minutes of his time. “I guess,” she said, wishing he would change the subject. “But that’s because he barely knows me.”

Penny tilted his head, like he was hearing something she hadn’t said out loud. For a moment, Alice remembered that he was psychic, but immediately dismissed the thought. She was sure, though she couldn’t say why, that he hadn’t been cheating this whole time. 

“And people who do know you?” He was using that tone again, like he was being careful with her, like he thought he had to go easy or she’d shy away like a wild horse.

Well, and wasn’t that her point? “I told you before, I don’t let people get to know me,” she said. “I actually prefer they don’t.” And then she flinched as the ropes bit in hard.

Penny must have noticed, but he didn’t point it out. “You said you let them think what they wanted. So they wouldn’t bother you. But what about when you want more than that? What if you don’t want someone to leave you alone?”

Alice sighed, and closed her eyes. Of course he’d remembered that. Her throat felt tight, which was stupid. _She_ was stupid for still having so many emotions about this very dumb thing. She was better than this, smarter than this. 

“It’s not easy,” she said carefully. If she just kept to the basics, she could keep her voice from shaking, keeping from embarrassing herself any further by crying in front of him like she was still that lonely third grader, or ninth grader, or college freshman. “For me, I mean. Dealing with people. Knowing what to say to them, or how to be around them without — I just don’t do it right. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never been able to. And so I just decided, a long time ago, that it was easier to act like I didn’t care about any of that.”

“But you did?” 

“I…yeah.” She took a shaky breath. “I guess so. I mean, I wasn’t lying when I said I like to be by myself. I don’t like crowds or parties or that kind of thing much. But that doesn’t mean I want to be alone all the time.”

“Of course not.”

“But I don’t - I understand why people don’t like me. I’m always saying the wrong thing, and I’m rude even when I really don’t mean to be, I just - “

“I like you.”

“What?” Then her brain caught up and she scoffed. “You don’t have to say that. That’s not what this exercise is about.” What time was it, even? Were they in danger of failing? She reached up to wipe at the tear that had slipped out despite her efforts and froze when he grabbed her hands.

He held them in the space between their bodies. “Alice,” he said, smiling. “I do like you. And I get that you aren’t the best with social situations, but I think maybe you make a bigger deal of it than it is. Yeah, you’re kind of prickly and defensive, and sometimes you’re a little too blunt - “

“Oh, yeah, I can see why you like me so much - “

“But you’re also thoughtful, and a good listener.” He studied her face, until she had to look away. “And you’ve made, what, three friends since you got here? So you can’t suck at it that much. Yeah, you’re smart. That’s not a bad thing and people who don’t like you because of that, they’re the problem, not you.”

“I guess.” She sniffed. “But two of my friends cheated off me on the trials, so maybe that’s why they want to be friends with the smart girl.”

He looked startled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it, and I don’t think Quentin did either - “

“I know. That was a joke. See, I suck at this.” He was still holding her hands. Was he going to keep doing that for the rest of the night? Was there a point when she was supposed to pull away so this didn’t get awkward, or was it on him to decide when they were done touching?

“Ok, look.” He was focused on their hands now, not her face, which was good because Alice was sure she was a mess. “I should probably take my turn. So, I -” He grinned, sort of self-mocking. “I get it.”

“You get what?” 

“What you’re saying. About how people don’t know you, and if they did, you think they wouldn’t stick around.”

She snorted. “Right.”

“I’m serious.”

If the ropes were bothering him, it didn’t show. “But you’re - “

He smiled when she cut herself off. “What? I don’t care what people think? I’m too good for them anyway? Yeah, great, that means the mask is working.”

“I was going to say you’re kind. Maybe you don’t have a lot of friends, but no one who actually knows you could miss that.” Well, except Quentin, but Alice figured that was a special case.

Penny paused, like she’d surprised him. “And that’s how it works, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled ruefully, ducking his head. “Caring about people, looking out for them, that’s easy. It’s the other part…”

“Letting them care about you?”

He laughed, but it sounded a little like it hurt. “Seems easier if they just don’t.”

“So, what, you go around having one-sided relationships with people? You take care of everyone else and get nothing back? Even I know that’s not how it works.” She tugged at his hands, and waited until he looked up at her. “Penny, Kady has no idea how you feel, does she?”

“No,” he admitted. “I want to tell her. I mean, I keep having these moments when we’re together and everything feels perfect and I think, ‘I’m going to say it,’ but then I make some excuse and I don’t. I’ve never done this, you know?”

“A relationship?”

“Trusted someone.”

“Oh.” She shouldn’t have been surprised, because in all the time they’d been out here, Penny had never talked about people. About relationships. Only… “Except the Beast?”

He gave her an exasperated look. “Oh, come on. I’m already acting like some abandoned-kid stereotype. Please don’t make this more pop-psych than it needs to be.” But he was laughing, so she laughed too.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” she said. “So, what, you think she would reject you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know that it’s that specific a fear. Just, the idea of opening up like that, admitting that I…” He closed his eyes. “That I need someone.”

She felt it, a tingle through their joined hands, but she kept her eyes on his face and didn’t react, and he didn’t seem to notice.

“As long as I’m alone,” he said, looking up, right at her but not like he saw her, “it doesn’t matter if I turn out to be a fuck-up, you know? Because it’s just me. I can’t hurt anyone but myself. I can’t disappoint anyone. I can’t be… not enough for them.”

“Penny,” she said. “It matters. Even when it was just you. You matter.”

He smiled slowly, the wounded look in his eyes lightening. “And you think you aren’t friend material.”

The moment cracked around her. Alice broke his gaze. “That’s not the same.”

“Come on, Alice. If you can say people would want me in their lives, then I’m going to say - “

“The difference is that you don’t know me.” Her voice came out sharp and high-pitched. “You just know the nerd in the front row who will give you all the answers and isn’t going to tell the Dean you cheated.”

He didn’t flinch. “That’s who I knew a few hours ago.”

“And what, because I told you about my screwed up family or how I’ve never had a boyfriend, that makes you think you know me any better? You have no idea who I am. You have no idea what I can do. You couldn’t, because I don’t.” The rage flared up from nowhere, like always, as she waited for him to say something and he just watched her. “That spell we did, the one that summoned the Beast? That’s a third year spell at least, and no offense, but I was pulling all your weight on that one.” She could hear the cruelty in her voice, but she couldn’t reel it in, or didn’t want to. “I almost cured a niffin a few months ago. Probably would have turned into one in the process, but do you know how few magicians could even attempt something like that? I feel it in me, all the time, this thing that I’m capable of, and I have no idea what to do with it.”

“It’s just magic, Alice,” he said. “It’s a part of you, yeah, but it’s not you.”

“It’s more than magic. It’s the rest of me, it’s - there’s a part of me that’s mean and angry. And if everyone knew it was there - “ She tried to imagine it, her skin stripped away and her real self exposed for everyone to see. She thought about Quentin, sweet, naive Q who’d thrown himself between her and a niffin, and imagined what he would think if he knew that for a second, she’d calculated his survival against Charlie’s and nearly chosen her brother. Not just because she cared about Charlie more, but because if she could save him after all her years of trying, she’d have proven she was _right_.

No one could want a monster like that in their life.

“None of you would like me very much if you knew who I was,” she said. She could feel the tears on her face again, but her voice was steady in the quiet that rang around them like a silent bell.

And Penny clearly didn’t know what to say. The skin around his eyes tightened, like he was fighting some emotion, and then he leaned forward. “Alice - “ He paused, and looked down.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yours came off a few minutes go. Mine just did.” She gently extracted her hands from his and shook out her wrists, noticing that the ropes had left no marks. “We passed.”

Even though she’d known, in the end, what her truth would be - maybe had known all along - she expected it to feel like more of a victory than it did.

Penny climbed to his feet, then reached down and offered her a hand. Alice took it automatically and let him pull her up, but the intimacy of the moment was gone. His touch felt intrusive, and she was painfully aware of their nudity. “I guess we just take our ropes back to Eliot and Margo.” She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip.

“Alice,” he said, and then a grimace of pain went across his face. ‘I - oh, fuck, what - “ He doubled over.

“Penny!” Alice tried to steady him, but he slipped through her grip and then something was happening to her, a ripple across her skin, her spine arching and cracking and…

_Oh, of course, _she thought, her last truly human thought. _Of course the test ends with a reward._

_******_

“Do you ever feel trapped?”

Quentin dragged his attention away from staring in numb horror at the clock across the campus. Thirteen minutes and they were going to lose this opportunity forever. Their minds were going to be wiped of all the memories they’d made at Brakebills, and they were going to go back to what they’d been before, which in his case was… what? A philosophy student? He hadn’t finished his last semester or made it to a real alumni interview, but maybe Dean Fogg would finagle that somehow, and Quentin could step right back into the life he’d left behind, one of jumping to the next thing, the next degree, the next fixation, hoping he could find enough to occupy his brain until he got to a place where he didn’t feel like he was always drowning. His chest was tight just thinking about it.

“All the time,” he said.

“Yeah?” Kady looked over from where she was standing a few feet away, arms crossed as she stared out at the campus. She sounded surprised, like she hadn’t expected an answer. Quentin thought this might not be the first time she’d spoken to him in the last few minutes, as he was drifting. “Why?”

“I’ve always felt like I don’t belong anywhere. Like I could fake it for a while, being happy, being normal, but it never felt real. And I pretty much assumed that was because I was, you know, useless, but there was a part of me…” For a second, he felt the spark of hope that always accompanied thoughts of Fillory, but “obsessed with a kid’s fantasy series” couldn’t be his big secret. All of Brakebills knew about that. “A part of me thought maybe I was just in the wrong place. Or,” he laughed, “or in the wrong life. Like maybe someday, someone would come along and tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘hey, Quentin, this whole thing, this life you can’t figure out, this awful way you feel all the time? This was all a mistake. This wasn’t what you were meant for.” He was aware that his voice was choked and he wasn’t doing anything to hide it, but what could that matter now? In a few hours, she wouldn’t remember anyway. He wouldn’t remember. “And then they’d take me off to wherever I was really supposed to be, and I’d fit. I’d be… I’d matter there.” He wiped at the tears that had appeared on his face, laughing roughly. “Stupid, right?”

“Well,” Kady said after a few seconds, “I mean, yeah. But isn’t that basically what happened?”

“I thought so.” He shrugged, his bound hands saying everything he wanted to.

“Right.” Kady fiddled with her own ropes. “I get that, you know.”

“Get what?”

“The whole escape thing. Thinking that your life isn’t the one you’re supposed to have. I used to think like that too.”

“Yeah?” Quentin forced himself to smile at her. If this was going to be the end of their time at Brakebills, he might as well go out listening to a friend, or whatever they’d become. “What did you want to be instead?”

“I had all kinds of ideas.” Kady grinned, leaning forward on her forearms and staring down over the side of the building. “Mostly made up from TV. I wasn’t a big reader like you, but I loved, like, cop shows, adventure shows. Superhero stuff.” She laughed. “I had a cape when I was a kid. I mean, it was actually a shawl or something of my mom’s, but I would run around pretending I could fly and fighting bad guys. Saving people.” Her expression grew wistful. “My mom told me there were magicians who could fly, and I thought that was the coolest thing. I begged her to teach me, but she didn’t know how. That’s when she started teaching me battle magic, though. You have to meditate and focus to learn it, and that’s what I would focus on. All the people I was going to save. I had this whole plan to, like, make a costume, and I was going to go out and protect the innocent.” She bit her lip. “I ended up mostly using it to threaten guys who messed with my mom or my friends.”

“Sounds like protecting the innocent to me.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes it was. Probably some of the time I was protecting the guilty. After I moved out, I got into some fucked up shit and I didn’t always hang out with the best people.”

Quentin studied the side of her face, the faint shadows created by her hair falling across her skin in the dim light from the buildings around them. It was easy to picture it. Superhero Kady, defender of hedge witches, taking down villains with her battle magic blasts and snarky quips. He thought about trying to give her a name, Lady Justice or something, but he knew she’d think he was unbelievably dorky. 

“You could still do it,” he said. “I mean, they’re going to wipe our memories when we fail, but that’s just of Brakebills. You’ll still be a hedge witch, and you’ll still know battle magic. I bet you could even figure out how to fly if you wanted.” Eliot said it was common for physical kids, though in five months Quentin had yet to see anyone do it. It was a terrible disappointment to think he never would.

Kady snorted. “Should I get some spandex, too?”

Quentin gave himself a second to think about that image, then banished it out of, like, respect. “Okay, maybe the superhero thing is a little childish. But you know what I mean. You’re still going to have magic, unlike me. You can go out and make the world better with it.” He slumped back against the wall. “And I can just go be normal.”

He could feel Kady eyeing him as he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. Even the air at Brakebills was different, smelled different. After a moment, he felt her lean against the wall beside him, their shoulders almost brushing. Quentin-from-the-real-world, he thought, would never believe that some version of himself had once stood naked on a rooftop with a ridiculously hot girl and hadn’t freaked out. 

“There are other ways to learn magic,” Kady said. “Even if you lose Brakebills, you might find one of them.”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “I’ll ask Eliot about it when he comes to seduce me.” Kady made a choked noise, and he opened his eyes and grinned. “Long story. But you’re right.” His amusement faded. “The last time I thought I was going to get kicked out, after the Beast thing, I called Julia. I left her this whole message begging her to help me remember the way she did. Maybe when I get my memory wiped and go back to my life, she’ll tell me. I mean, it’s not like I’ll remember why I’m angry with her, so we can be friends again. If she even wants to be.”

“I don’t think that’s a great idea. She’s a bitch.”

Quentin blinked at her. “How do you - oh. Penny told you? About the Scarlotti’s Web thing?” He was sure Penny hadn’t told her what he’d seen, but he must have explained the general idea of what happened.

But Kady shook her head. “I was there. I was the one who found you passed out in the closet after you contacted Penny.”

He had no memory of Kady being there when he’d woken up, panicked and disoriented, to Fogg’s lecture and Eliot patting his head, or later when they’d spent the night drinking in front of a series of bad movies, him curled up on the couch beneath a blanket with Margo and El on either side and the rest of their housemates scattered around, because Eliot had declared it a rare “no parties” night and refused to let Quentin retreat to his room. He’d noticed that it was weird, since Kady usually showed up as soon as the drinks came out, but he’d put it down to her being with Penny and Penny avoiding him. 

“Uh, thanks, then,” he said. “I mean, for finding me. How did you find me?”

“I saw you crawl in there during the party the night before. Weird choice, you know?”

“Eliot made me drink three of his signature cocktails and I got lost looking for my room.” He thought of teasing her again about how she always noticed what he was doing, but the strange look on her face made him uneasy. 

Kady turned away. “Anyway, Julia. Stay away from her. She’s dangerous. And a shitty friend.”

“Well, I’m not the best friend to her I could be, either.”

“Yeah? How many of her worst nightmares have you trapped her in?”

“Just one.” He meant it to come out lightly, but he missed the mark. Kady raised her eyebrows. 

“Brakebills,” he said. “Julia failed the test, but the memory wipe didn’t work on her. She begged me to talk to the school and have them reconsider her.” Kady still looked blank. “That’s her worst nightmare,” he explained. “Failing, or, having the potential for something and not reaching it. She’s always been the best, ever since we were kids. She’s the most intense person I’ve ever met. And Brakebills? She loved magic when we were kids. So of course when she found out it was real, she wanted to be here. And I shut her down. I was an asshole about it.”

“ Okay, but you didn’t keep her from getting into the school.”

“I didn’t help her, either.”

Kady rolled her eyes. “That’s not the same thing as what she did. There’s nothing you could have done for her - “

“I know. And when I realized that, I was relieved.” It slipped out without him meaning to say the words; the thought had been there, in the back of his mind, for all the weeks since their fight at the hedge witch safe house, but only when he spoke it out loud and felt the ropes around his wrists loosen was he sure it was true. 

“Julia and I have been together our whole lives,” he said. “We met in an advance placement class in second grade and that was it. Julia-and-Quentin.” He dropped his eyes to the ground, staring at his feet. “We went through everything together, all our family shit, our parents’ divorces. I could tell her anything and she understood, or even if she didn’t, she never judged me. But then we got older and she made other friends, had other interests. I got jealous.” He tipped his head back, staring up at the stars, dizzyingly far away. “She never left me out. She was always trying to get me out of my own head, especially when it got scary in there. But it felt like I stopped being her friend and started being a project.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, she says it’s not true, but that’s how it felt. Like she pitied me.”

“And then?” Kady asked. Quentin could tell from her voice that she already knew.

“And then I got into Brakebills. And she didn’t. This place chose me. Not her.”

“And you liked that.”

“I liked it.” The admission made him feel sick and free at the same time. “For once in my life, there was something that fit _me_, and it was this amazing, impossible opportunity, in this place where people thought I was worth something. Not because I was Julia’s best friend, but just because of me. And I, I love Julia. But I didn’t want her here. It felt like, if she was here, why would this place want me too?”

He took a shaky breath and brought his hands up to rub at his eyes, stilling when he realized he had room to move his wrists in the ropes.

“You know,” Kady said, “you never told me why you want to stay at Brakebills. That was the first thing you asked me, but you never answered the question.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” he said, staring in confusion at his hands. “This is the last place.”

“Last?”

“I’m always looking for something better, or at least different, and it’s not going to get better or more different than this. Not unless Fillory changes it’s mind and decides it wants me instead of Penny.” He could feel magic against his skin, something bigger than what you always felt in the air at Brakebills. “I can’t stand the thought of being me, like this, forever. But this place - it chose me, it said I was special, and I thought that meant it would make me better. Make me someone I could…But it didn’t. I’m still the same.” He couldn’t see it happening, but he could feel them moving, like the words dragged from his mouth were tugging at them. “I’ve never wanted to give up,” he said softly, watching the ropes begin to unravel. “I fight all the time, every day. And I can keep doing that, forever, I _will_, but it has to mean that someday I get to be someone different. Someone I don’t have to hate.”

The ropes made no noise as they slipped from his wrists and fell to the ground.

Quentin turned, slowly, and stared across the campus. Two minutes to midnight.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. 

“Congratulations,” Kady said softly.

“Thanks.” Quentin turned back to her, still blinking back tears, the relief and thrill of _it’s not over _warring with the ache in his chest, and saw her hands, still bound. “Shit, Kady.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the clock. “We still have two minutes.”

“It’s okay.”

“Come on, we can do this.”

“No, it’s fine.” Kady shook her head, sending her hair across her eyes to obscure her expression. “You were right, it’s not like I’m going to lose everything.”

“But you’re going to lose this.” Now that he still had Brakebills, the thought of her, or anyone, losing it seemed unbearable. “Kady, we can figure this out. We just have to guess - “

“Q, stop. I told you. I never expected this. Places like this don’t happen for people like me.”

“Like they happen for people like me? Some loser who spent his whole life buried in fantasy novels because he hates himself? But -” He grabbed the loose rope from the ground, holding it up to her. “We can get yours off too. You just have to - “ He closed his eyes, trying to remember what had happened when his ropes came off. “It’s something you already know,” he said. “Something you’ve always known, something obvious but you don’t let yourself think about it. Just this once, you have to let yourself - “

“Stop trying to help me!”

Quentin flinched at the anger in her voice. She had taken a step back, her whole body tense in the dim light. The way she held her bound hands in front of her, Quentin couldn’t tell if she was threatening him or pleading.

“Kady?” 

“You shouldn’t - “ She shook her head, hair flying, and turned so he couldn’t see her expression. “You don’t want to help me.”

“Of course I do.” Quentin took a step towards her. “We’re… friends, I guess, right?”

She laughed. “No.”

“Oh. Okay.” He couldn’t pretend that didn’t hurt, but it also didn’t matter. They were partners, for the next minute and thirty seconds; he had to help her. “Then, not friends, but - “

“I am the last person you should be friends with,” she interrupted. “You, or Penny, or anyone. I’m not someone it’s good to have in your life. I’m - I’m toxic.”

“Kady, is this about you stealing from the school? Because I told you, I don’t care. I think it’s admirable. And Penny would understand - “

“He’d understand how I’ve been using him? He was the distraction the first time I stole. It was a book and a charm from the cottage, back before we moved in there. He has no idea that’s the whole reason I got with him in the first place, because he was useful. And the worst of it?” She shook her head. “Penny hates being a Traveler, and he’s terrified of it. So scared he was willing to ask for my help, even though he’s not someone who lets people see his weaknesses. And if I’m his friend, or more, I should help him, right? But what did I do? Try to convince him he’d be a really great thief.”

Quentin felt like his mind had stalled out, like he was hearing her, but his brain had stuttered on one line and couldn’t comprehend anything after that. “A book?” he said. “You stole a book? From the Physical Kids?”

“Yeah. It was one of a pair.” He could see she knew what he was slowly putting together.

A book, one of a pair, stolen from the Physical Kids, a book so important Eliot had dragged him into the city to track it down before anyone noticed it was missing, a book they’d found in a safehouse above a bodega, where they’d also found - 

“You don’t hate Julia because of what she did to me, do you?” he asked numbly.

“Well, not just because of that.” Kady sounded resigned. Her hands were limp in front of her, bound wrists hanging down. He noticed absently that the ropes were slipping over her thumbs. “She’s crazy. She hooked up with Marina and you don’t do that unless you care a lot more about magic than the people around you.”

Marina had to be the girl who’d slept with Kady and then tricked her. Quentin vaguely remembered the name. Fogg had talked about her, explaining what Julia had been doing when she cast the Scarlotti’s Web, what the whole thing had really been about, but Quentin hadn’t cared about much more than his best friend betraying him. 

He forced himself to look at Kady. “When did you meet Julia?”

“A couple of months ago.” Kady didn’t try to soften the blow. 

“Before the Scarlotti’s Web?”

She nodded. “It was my job to make sure someone figured out what was going on and told Fogg, so he’d bring in the Matarese - “

“Yeah, I, I get it.” Quentin stumbled back against the wall, rubbing his hands over his face and running his fingers back into his hair, tugging. _It doesn’t change anything,_ he thought, but it did, because he’d sat up here for hours and told her everything, all his fears, all his insecurities and fucked-up neuroses, and the whole time she’d known - it was just like Julia, the one person he’d ever fully trusted, how she’d - 

“But it’s because you had to, right?” Pathetic, how he was grasping at some explanation here that went beyond _you don’t matter to any of them, at all_. “I mean, with your mom - Marina’s, she’s got a hold over you, you don’t have a choice - “

“Oh, fuck that! Don’t fucking make excuses for me.” Kady’s anger had banked down beneath her resignation, but now he saw it flare back up. “This is who I am, okay? I don’t want to be this person, I don’t want to be someone who hurts everyone around me, I just want to… But I’m this. I can make up a bunch of fantasies about helping people, about being some of kind of, of hero, but in the end? I’m a traitor and a liar and a thief. That’s the reality. That’s who I am.”

She was panting hard, staring at him with her eyes wide and tears making them shine. 

“Your ropes fell off,” Quentin said quietly.

“What?” Kady stared down at her hands, confusion and relief and something else, something he thought might be regret, flashing over her face. “Oh,” she said, and then she fell to her knees and screamed.

Quentin pushed off the wall, trying to go to her, but something had him in it’s grip, rippling across his skin and twisting his arms violently behind his back. He met Kady’s eyes across the rooftop, one last look of fear and apology, and then human thought was gone.

None of it mattered any more.


End file.
